E Porfolio- Thoughts

I enjoyed the E Porfolio. Personally I think blogs are fun. Do I get behind in my work? Yes. But I still like it. I wish I had thought to use blogs with my students. It could be fun. I have learned a lot this first year of teaching. There are many things that I want to try with my classes that I have learned from my peers this year. One thing that I noticed with my Spanish class was that I was so bogged down in making sure that they learned their Spanish vocabulary that I forgot about teaching them things that I feel are more important. Like culture, exceptance, and a bit of American History. Next time.

Differentiate!

I have a student in one of my classes that is your classic disorganized, day dreamer. He is distracted easily, can not sit still, and needs to have something occupying his thoughts at all times or else he's lost for good. Home work is never done and notes are lost instantly. He is great with class work though. He will be one of the first students finished with an activity. He's good with technology so right off the bat I think that this student would benifit from his own personal computer or ipad for class. His work would be saved and notes would always be there for him. It is also a switch up from using paper and pensil all the time. There are two apps that I can use with him in class. Since he can never hold on the notes very well I would want him to use something like Popplet. Popplet is a nice little organizational tool that I think would be good for note taking.
Here's a Popplet that I made while car shopping awhile back:

 We went with the Prius.

I think he could also benefit from using Office HD to do his work and also Audio Note. In Audio Note the student can type out their sentences or paragraph and then record themselves saying it. This would be perfect for helping him correct some of his grammar. He always wants to shout out the answer but there's always a tiny problem with his grammar. So this app would help.

PowerPoints are so 2001

I used to use powerpoints a lot in my classes. Not necessarily for lecturing but to introduce vocabulary. Now that I have the ipad and the keynote, I basically do the same thing. For my language classes I will show a picture along with the vocabulary word on the slide show. These pictures are usually silly or funny so that the presentation is enjoyable. Here are some examples.

I also found a great prezi online that a teacher named David Johnston created. I never thought to conduct my class based on the prezi. It's pretty cool. Here's a link: http://prezi.com/3z_ppbj0fhgt/spanish-class-resources/

At some point I will be trying this. I just have to work on my organization skills a little bit more.

Assignment Number 10 (to the tune of Mambo #5)

Part Uno-
I have chosen two apps that I think can be used and used well in my Spanish class. First I would like to say that I tried to be creative and find some new and cool app for upper level language learning but they just don't exist yet. Or at least what I would want an app to be does not exist yet. The first app is called Otter Call. This is a little game where the students must listen to the word in Spanish and then say the word. If the word is said correctly then they receive a point. I actually really like this game because it interacts with my students. The second app is called AudioNote. This is your basic recording device except that is has a paper where you can write or draw to take notes. So my kids can type out what they want first and then record it right from their notes on the ipad.

Part Dos-

Here is a link to my assessment Rubric. My students did a video/scrapbook project on their family.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDdlNHBJbXd5cG1aRmk2bGVTbnU2d3c6MQ

Video from iMovie

I found iMovie to be a lot of fun and easy to do. My only problem with this was finding a subject to make a video about. I actually made a couple of videos, all turning out to be quite dumb. I finally picked  one that was alright but it's mainly pictures. I feel that kids could really take to this because it is easy and works really well. As long as they have a subject! So here is the video. It could be so much better. Next time!

QR Crazyness!

I realized today that I am extremely behind on my homework for this class. Sorry Jason. But I will make it up to you and the world. I'm skipping the video one for right now because the one I made was so bad and I have a day in Nashville to make one. But I did want to post something that I made. I loved the qr codes and wanted to make a little digital scavenger hunt for my kids. We were talking about Salvador Dali so I made codes to take them to information about him and surrealism. I made a glogster with the qr codes on it and then let the kids go to own! Their last qr was under one of the students desk and told them to create their own piece of surreal art. Pictures to come!

The Flipped Classroom? Say wha????!!!

                               
This weeks class was quite humorous to me. Most of the time I sat there quietly and just listened to my classmates opinions on the flipped classroom. I don't think one person in the class agreed with or even thought that the flipped classroom was a good idea! I agree with them though. The flipped classroom just doesn't seem like something that would work or should work in the classroom. First... It would be nice to just do projects in class and have the students listen, watch, or read the lecture at home, but there is no way that all or even half of the students would do their work at home. Not with all the sports, band, lessons, or even family time that many kids take part in after school. Second... With this set up there is basically no need for a teacher in the classroom. There could be a classroom facilitator at school when the children at school and then the teacher would never need to actually be in contact with the students.

Now I could see where this could be nice every once and awhile. If you could actually guarantee that the students would watch/listen to the lecture on their own. It would definitely be a time saver. But at the same time I would want to check and make sure that the kids understood the lecture. Maybe using the at home lecture as a review would be better.

Yes social media! Kids live in a world of facebook, twitter, and youtube and so do I!!!  So why can't we take that weird world of social media that we get stuck in and use it for learning? Now it's true, I might get distracted being on a facebook or twitter for an activity. But I think there are ways to get around that.

Twitter is a great way to extend the classroom. I would use twitter as a way for my students to continue communicating in Spanish. I would post questions and students can answer and ask their classmates questions too. I will be using this.